i had to replace the HD and i reinstalled xp with sp3
my problem is. when playing any video from the net (www.flixxy.com for example) the video stutters.
i looked at the task monitor and looking at CPU usage it is pegged at 100%
i did update the adobe flash player. did not help any.
the cpu is 3ghz and has 1.5gb memory. the memory is not hardly used.. but cpu is maxed out
any suggestions ?
let me know if you need more info.

Just a wild guess, but have you installed/updated all the drivers, especially the chipset & video drivers? It sounds like the computer is trying to use the CPU for video processing. As I said, just a guess, trying to help.

Also, please post the your dell's model number, and the make/model of any custom parts you've swapped out. !.5GB of memory is an odd number. It might run a little faster with 2GB, as a pair of matched memory modules, but not sure unless you provide more info.

it is a dell dimension 4600 - the internal video card is not being used. it has a ati rage 3d card in it.
not sure why they put in a external video card. but the drivers for it are up to date. not sure what chipset is. but your right the cpu does seem to be doing all the video work. the 1.5G of memory does not seem to be an issue since it is very low use in the task mon.
i updated the java , flash and active X , and it did not seem to help any.
only when streaming videos it hogs all the cpu.

well, one phrase to explain your problems, as the guy always said on the commercials, "dude, you got a dell".

but anyways, try turning down your colors from 32 bit to 16 bit in the video preferences. my ancient laptop has the same problem if it's at 32 bit color, but as soon as you switch it down to 16 bit, it'll play videos perfectly.

also, for the older cards, I always tried to use omegadrivers from omegadrivers.net (not affiliated with them), they seem to help a bunch with resolving the graphics issues that I would have from stock drivers.

Ive switched from windows to linux, so am having a hard time remembering what the windows are called anymore.

In the "Run" type msconfig and see what all is running in the background.Note: If your using Norton Utilities or such protection programs they will eat up a lot of CPU time!
Check for stuff that you don't need running.
Like the ATI video display control console, or Adobe Reader Speed Launcher.
Basically turn off the crap that you don't use or need.

Once you do, you'll see much better performance from your machine.

Special Note:
Dell Computers normally have a hidden partition on the Hard Drive.
This has specialty diagnostic tools in it, and info to maximize system performance.

I don't known if Dell is still offering the tools so customers can load them onto replacement Hard Drives.

You may want to look into some good software maintenance utilities that will help tweak the maximum performance out of this computer.

Also, it wouldn't hurt to max out the memory on this computer.
Plus, check what are the stat's on your ATI rage 3d card.
AGP cards are still out there, but the 256M & 512M cards are getting hard to find.

ya i did most all that, it was the video card and plugincontainer.exe a firefox plug in that's needed.
i finally found some better compatible drivers for the agp video card. but before it had the cpu slammed to 100%
and as far as any extra tools on the dell, there is none any more.. on the old HD, it showed about 50mb of info, but you never could see it,, not even in the hidden files. anyway, its all squared away.

dacflyer wrote:ya i did most all that, it was the video card and plugincontainer.exe a firefox plug in that's needed.

Hmmm........
Something sounds fishy........
The Flash Player Plugin for FireFox Ver 18 is all that I use.
I've run into some sites that say they need you to use their player to watch the video's.
But in reality your loading in a piece of malware to make your machine a zombie for DOS {Denial Of Service} Attacks.
Be careful!

dacflyer wrote:i finally found some better compatible drivers for the agp video card. but before it had the cpu slammed to 100%

Cool...
How much Memory is on the AGP Card?

dacflyer wrote:As far as any extra tools on the dell, there is none any more.. on the old HD, it showed about 50mb of info, but you never could see it,, not even in the hidden files. anyway, its all squared away.

That's because that hidden 50mb of info is the Hidden Diagnostic Partition on the old Hard Drive.
You can only access it during start up.

From Dell Support:Boot Sequence

This feature allows you to change the boot sequence for devices.Changing Boot Sequence for the Current Boot

You can use this feature, for example, to tell the computer to boot from the CD drive so that you can run the Dell Diagnostics on the Drivers and Utilities CD, but you must set the computer to boot from the hard drive when the diagnostic tests are complete.